4 comments:

I've found that shadows are one of the few things that can really make something like this pop. Try adding deep shadows (you've got a shallow shadow on the white text in the 2nd one) to every element (including the border, etc.) just to see if you come up with something different.

Here's an example of something that had no shadows...I added shadows to most of the elements and it really added a lot of depth and dimension: http://practicalworship.blogspot.com/2007/11/festival-of-trees.html